Cross Black/Pelikan Brilliant Black

I only have one bottle of black ink in my possession and this is it. I’m not a big fan of black ink. In fact, I just about never use it, but I purchased this bottle for two reasons: 1) I think everyone should have at least on bottle of black ink and 2) It was less than $5.

What’s interesting is that I actually kinda like this ink. It’s dryish without feeling the part, its got some decent water resistance, and it works well with dip pens.

The Details:

• No feathering or bleed through
• Decent flow and lubrication, but it is a bit on the dry side.
• Average drying time at 6 seconds
• Very little shading. This isn’t the blackest of black inks, but it is plenty dark.
• Very good water resistance

All in all, not a bad way to spend $5!

Note: Cross Black is the same as Pelikan Brilliant Black.

(click to enlarge and sharpen the image)

No Affil.

Diamine Jet Black

There’s no sense in beating around the bush here, I do not like this ink. Black is just not my ink color especially not one that shades. As a matter of fact, I no longer have the bottle. Last year I traded it to a fellow FPNer. I’ve had this review written up for quite some time, but I couldn’t bring myself to post it. That is, until I saw a thread on FPN about a member looking for an ink that writes similarly to his favorite rollerball refill.

At first I scoffed at this: ” FP ink like rollerball ink? Blasphemy!” I thought to myself. But, when I ran across this review card the other day I realized that this just might be a good candidate. The poster wanted a black ink (√), that wasn’t too saturated (√) and that shaded just enough so that he could see the paper behind his writing (√). In my opinion Diamine Jet Black fits that description. Now if I could just find that thread so I can recommend it to the OP…

The Details:

• No feathering or bleed through
• Decent flow and lub, but there is a dry feeling about it.
• Slow drying time at 12ish seconds
• It shades quite a bit for a black ink (especially one called JET black)
• It is water resistant, but not waterproof

No Affil.